China’s Dada-JD Daojia gets investment from Walmart, JD.com

The Chinese online delivery company, Dada-JD Daojia raised $500 million in its latest round of financing

Dada-JD Daojia received investment from U.S. retailer Walmart and JD.com

The Chinese firm was born out of the merger of JD Daojia and Dada Nexus

BEIJING, China - China’s online delivery company announced that it had raised $500 million in its latest round of financing, revealing that the investment came from U.S. retailer Walmart and JD.com.

Born out of the merger between JD.com's online-to-offline business, JD Daojia and the large crowd-sourcing delivery platform in China, Dada Nexus - Dada-JD Daojia is a Chinese online grocery and delivery firm.

The company, which operates a network of 5 million delivery men, currently comprises of two businesses.

Dada-JD Daojia’s top investor in the latest round of financing was JD Daojia.

The firm which boasts of 20 million monthly active users, delivers goods from local supermarkets and other partners via a location-based smartphone app.

The company operates as JD.com's online-to-offline business in China.

Chinese eCommerce powerhouse JD.com, which has been involved in an aggressive competition with China's largest eCommerce player Alibaba - is backed by Chinese tech giant Tencent and other prominent global and local tech firms, including Google.

Since Tencent operates WeChat, which is China largest social messaging platform, JD.com is able to sell directly to consumers through the WeChat app.

In what came as a further boost for the Chinese eCommerce powerhouse this year, Google decided to invest $550 million into the Chinese firm in June this year.

Commenting on Thursday’s announcement, JD.com said that it planned to make a selection of items available for sale in places like the U.S. and Europe through Google Shopping.

The Chinese firm pointed out that the deal comes at a time when trade tensions between Beijing and Washington are high and said that this new partnership would open a channel for JD.com to sell to consumers outside China.

Meanwhile, the world’s top retailer, Walmart said that it first partnered with Dada-JD Daojia in 2016, when it invested $50 million into the company.

Walmart pointed out in its statement that currently, 200 Walmart stores in 30 major Chinese cities have a presence in JD Daojia.

The retailer further noted that earlier this year, it launched its first small high-tech supermarket in China.

At the time, the U.S. retailer said that its new venture would allow customers to use their smartphones to pay for items that are available on Walmart's virtual store on JD Daojia's platform.

In a statement on Thursday, Wern-Yuen Tan, president and CEO for Walmart China said, "We are confident that this deeper collaboration with Dada-JD Daojia will enhance our omni-channel footprint and deliver a better O2O (online to offline) customer experience.”

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